*NOTE: CONSTANTLY UPDATED TO REFLECT SUGGESTED CHANGES LAST UPDATE: 7 March 2010 at 1204 EST*

Have fun with this one, change it in any way you feel necessary. For the most part I think I'm happy with it. Just a couple of things: One contact is all I wanted and I applied that throughout the Chargen process, the reason why will be addressed in the backstory. And second, I have not writtten a complete backstory yet, all i want is suggestions to make the character build itself better and more efficient. Skills were picked with the background in mind (Think Army/Interrogator/Dog Handler). In a small way he's a bit of a generalist.

*One more thing: Rating 6 SIN's and associated licenses are allowed as per GM House Rule at Chargen. Vehicle SIN=Vehicle Registration.*

Enjoy.

Brandon Burrs “Fenrir”
Former UCAS Army Interrogator/Dog Handler

Height: 5’10
Weight: 160
Hair Color/Style: Black/Short Military Cut
Eye Color: Blue
Race: Caucasian

400BP
Human

400BP
Qualities:
+
Restricted Gear (2) 10BP
Animal Empathy 10BP
-
SINner 5BP
Flashbacks 10BP
Big Regret 5BP
Records on File: UCAS Military 10BP

410BP
Attributes:
Body 3(4) 20BP
Agility 4(7) 30BP
Reaction 4(5) 40BP
Strength 3(6) 20BP
Charisma 4 30BP
Intuition 4 30BP
Logic 3 20BP
Willpower 2 10BP
Edge 2 0BP

210BP
Skills:
Pistols: Semi-automatics 3 14BP
Automatics: Assault Rifles 4 18BP
Intimidation: Interrogation 4 18BP
Negotiation: Sense Motive 3 14BP
Leadership 2 8BP
Animal Husbandry Skill Group 3 30BP
Unarmed Combat: Subdual Combat 2 10BP
Dodge: Melee Combat 2 10BP
Pilot Groundcraft 2 8BP
First Aid: Combat Wounds 2 10BP
Perception 3 12BP


Knowledge Skills: 21Points
Professional:
UCAS Army 4
Dog Training/Handling 5
Military Security Procedures 5
Academic:
Military History 4
Interests:
Awakened Canines 3
Language:
English N

58BP
Gear:
50BP (250,000¥)
“Orestes” Hellhound w/ Combat Training 50,000¥ (GM/Player Developed House Rule applied to cost)
200,000¥
4 Months Middle Lifestyle
180,000¥
Sernopal VZ/88V 1650¥
Gas Vent 2 System (Included)
Smartgun System 400¥
Imaging Scope (Included):
Thermographic Vision 100¥
250 Rounds Standard Ammunition 500¥
100 Rounds Hollow Point Ammunition 500¥
50 Rounds APDS Ammunition 350¥
4 Spare Clips 20¥
Hammerli 620S 650¥
Smartgun System (Included)
Gas Vent System (Included)
250 Rounds Standard Ammunition 500¥
2 Spare Clips 10¥
GMC Commodore 17000¥
2 Rating 6 Fake Vehicle SIN 1200¥
Middle Amenities 100¥
Anti-Theft System 2000¥
Gridlink w/ Override 2750¥
Drive-By-Wire 500¥
Novatech Airware w/ Iris Orb (Burrs) 2250¥
Renraku Sensei w/ Renraku Ichi (Hayes) 1600¥
147,920
Real SIN (Free)
Brandon Burrs UCAS Army Veteran
Gun License (2)
Concealed Carry License
Drivers License
Rating 6 Fake SIN 6000¥
John Hayes
Fake Gun License (2) 6 1200¥
Fake Concealed Carry License 6 600¥
Fake Drivers License 6 600¥
139,620¥
Muscle Augmentation 2 14,000¥
Muscle Toner 2 16,000¥
Suprathyroid Gland 45,000¥
Sleep Regulator 10,000¥
Platelet Factories 25,000¥
29,620¥
Form Fitting Body Armor Full Suit 1,600¥
SWAT Armor w/ Helmet 9200¥
Executive Suite Line 1700¥
5 Stimulant Patches 6 750¥
2 Trauma Patches 1000¥
10 Plasteel Restraints 500¥
Flashlight 25¥
Rating 6 Medkit 600¥
8,145¥
German Linguasoft 4 2000¥
Arabic Linguasoft 4 2000¥
Japanese Linguasoft 4 2000¥
Russian Linguasoft 4 2000¥
145¥

8BP
Contacts:
“Alexander” Vory Fixer C4/L4
Alexander is an interesting fellow. Alexander was born in Prague in 2045 to wealthy parents. Needless to say he was a rebellious child and by the time he was a teen began to interact with the “wrong” types of people. Specifically the local Vory outfit. Not long after he turned 16 he became an official member of the Vory. For a couple years he worked in Prague, thieving and murdering. But eventually he found that he was better at setting up the dirty work then actually doing it. In 2064 he moved to Seattle and continued his criminal activity there. He made his presence known in the Vory friendly areas of Seattle and quickly became an implemental part of Vory operations. He now specializes in hiring “outsiders” to do work for the Vory. Burrs met him shortly after moving to Seattle when he was looking for some work. He has since become a loyal friend and confidant, Burrs relies on him for work in tough times, in fact Burrs is just short of being Vory himself because of Alexander.

A couple of things off hand


Restricted Gear is only 5 points each and can only be bought a max of three times limiting it to 15.


Not sure what this is. You can license a vehicle but not sure you can SIN one. Even if you mean license these would both be over 12 availability and need the restricted gear quality applied to them.


I am not sure Real SIN requires a rating since its your real SIN and does not have to fool scanners.


Again all of these are over 12 availability and would require the restricted gear quality. Even if you bought it the maximum of three times this would put you way over the qualities limit.


Again over 12 availability and would require another application of restricted gear.

All in all not a bad build but to remain within normal build rules your gonna need to get rid of some gear

Okay, sorry, forgot to clarify as has been done in past Chargen posts. My GM allows the acquiring of SIN's and associated licenses over Rating 4 at Chargen due to the nature of his game. Also a vehicle registration on what the GM refers to as a vehicle SIN.

Also, I must have made a calculation error somewhere on the Restricted Gear Quality, my mistake, you may have just found me another 10BP to mess with.

EDIT: Nope, my math added up, I just just accidentally put a 2 where there should have been a 1

For what its worth, as a former Military Intelligence guy who worked a bit with Interrogators...

You'll really want to have the entire social skill group to reflect a military interrogator background, especially a professional force like the UCAS. Honestly, Intimidation is the technique of last resort. Building rapport is the tool of the trade that is most effective and yields the most actionable intelligence, Con (to make the subject believe you are sincere) and Leadership (to maintain a feeling that the interrogator is in control at all times) would be your go-to skills.

Intimidation is the technique used by hacks and people who will tend to get what they want to hear, not necessarily the truth.

Living Oxymoron- Thank you for the suggestion. I had leadership in there earlier, and then took it out, at one point I did have the whole skill group, but then also took it out. From a RL standpoint I know exactly what you're talking about with the intimidation thing, I grew up around the Army, and will soon be joining it myself. It's just, I work on character builds late at night, and that's normally when I have the best ideas but don't have the brain power to think through everything with the measure of commonsense that i should have.

Also, it looks like you spent 6K on your "Real" SIN.

Its yours, chummer, you get that for free. Its rating goes to infinity!

If the weapon licenses associated with it are fake, though, you have to pay for those.

LivingOxymoron- Thanks again. That;s something I wanted to ask the GM about. The Real SIN thing was always a little confusing to me, didn;t know if i should pay for it and associated licenses as those things have been acquired throughout the Characters lifetime (Whether i stole the GMC Commodore or not it still costs me 17,000 at Chargen). Thanks for the clarification.

Also, updated the skills if you want to have a look at those.

It's an interesting concept/build, but unfortunately, the Influence skill group does not include the intimidation skill, and interrogation is a specialization of intimidation in SR4.

Glyph, It was late last night when I was doing changes and as i was doing so I was thinking about that... It's something I was going to address today. Last night I was a little too lazy...

Alright, so, just a few suggestions. Seems you're getting real good at making characters.

First, my fairly standard message when I see specializations, remember that you can get them for the same cost in Karma as in BP, and so make great first karma buys. Sucks from a starting character point of view when the character should really have the spec based on background, but just something to think about when trying to free up a few BP.

Along those lines, trying for the extra 5 BP from negative qualities might be a good idea. With no backstory it is hard to make suggestions, but Lost Loved One might work, as could Day Job. Maybe a low grade Enemy? I leave that for you to work out if you want to consider it at all. Picking that up and dropping a couple specs could let you bring your Animals group up to 4.

You're strength seems fairly high given you're relative lack of melee combat skills. For most purposes, a strength of 5 is functionally equivalent to a strength of 6, and is still certainly enough to give a 'big tough guy' impression.

Speaking of 'big tough guy' I noticed that you can't move in your armor. SWAT armor is 12/10, with helmet it is 14/12. With a body of 4, you can wear a max of 8 armor before you take penalties. At 14 you're 6 over which gives a -3 to agility. With your FFBA you're an extra 3 over which is another -2 to agility. Drops you're agility to 2 when fully suited up. Likely the best way to fix this would be to go with an armor jacket 6/4 and the FFBA 6/2 to give you an effective armor of 12/6 and an effective encumbrance of 9, which only lowers you're agility by 1. You could add some PPP to bring you're balistic up another 1 point, and impact up to (try) and match your balistic. Off the top of my head I think you could manage an effective armor of 13/10 or 11. The nice thing about this option is that you can drop one of your restricted gear qualities.

You're other option is to grab milspec armor. Given you're military background, it would make sense. Milspec allows you to go up to body x 3 before encumbrance sets in, and the lowest milspec is 12/10, which means that it just fits. With the helmet it is 14/12, so you'd get a -1 agility with that, but you could negate that with the mobility upgrade for milspec, which not only reduces the encumbrance penalty by 1, but also gives you a bonus to your running tests (And maybe a couple other things, don't remember). This also opens up some options for cool enhancements, like the strength upgrade which can give you up to +3 strength for 4500 nuyen, or the hydraulic jacks upgrade which lets you jump like crazy and fall for several meters without damage.

As for where to get the money? Well, if you grab the strength upgrade from the armor, you could drop your muscle enhancements. Might also consider dropping the gland which would give you back 5 BP. That combined with adding another 5 BP of negative qualities could give you you're rating in animals. You could also chip at smaller things, but it'd be alot of chipping due to the cost of the armor, helmet, and upgrades.

Oh, nearly missed it. I highly suggest either getting a skill at six or getting two skills at five. Karma wise it is very expensive to raise a skill to five or six compared to the BP cost to do so.

Okay, so wrote more than I expected, but still, mostly minor(or non-existent) things and one rather big one. Oh, and I know you said you wanted to keep the hellhound, but I still suggest you pick up some regular dogs as well. No reason you can't have both, and you could think of it as an infantry and tank setup. The normal dogs are the infantry and the hellhound is the big tank (though not quite as hard to destroy). Variety is the spice of life after all

Alright, so, just a few suggestions. Seems you're getting real good at making characters.

First, my fairly standard message when I see specializations, remember that you can get them for the same cost in Karma as in BP, and so make great first karma buys. Sucks from a starting character point of view when the character should really have the spec based on background, but just something to think about when trying to free up a few BP.

Along those lines, trying for the extra 5 BP from negative qualities might be a good idea. With no backstory it is hard to make suggestions, but Lost Loved One might work, as could Day Job. Maybe a low grade Enemy? I leave that for you to work out if you want to consider it at all. Picking that up and dropping a couple specs could let you bring your Animals group up to 4.

You're strength seems fairly high given you're relative lack of melee combat skills. For most purposes, a strength of 5 is functionally equivalent to a strength of 6, and is still certainly enough to give a 'big tough guy' impression.

Speaking of 'big tough guy' I noticed that you can't move in your armor. SWAT armor is 12/10, with helmet it is 14/12. With a body of 4, you can wear a max of 8 armor before you take penalties. At 14 you're 6 over which gives a -3 to agility. With your FFBA you're an extra 3 over which is another -2 to agility. Drops you're agility to 2 when fully suited up. Likely the best way to fix this would be to go with an armor jacket 6/4 and the FFBA 6/2 to give you an effective armor of 12/6 and an effective encumbrance of 9, which only lowers you're agility by 1. You could add some PPP to bring you're balistic up another 1 point, and impact up to (try) and match your balistic. Off the top of my head I think you could manage an effective armor of 13/10 or 11. The nice thing about this option is that you can drop one of your restricted gear qualities.

You're other option is to grab milspec armor. Given you're military background, it would make sense. Milspec allows you to go up to body x 3 before encumbrance sets in, and the lowest milspec is 12/10, which means that it just fits. With the helmet it is 14/12, so you'd get a -1 agility with that, but you could negate that with the mobility upgrade for milspec, which not only reduces the encumbrance penalty by 1, but also gives you a bonus to your running tests (And maybe a couple other things, don't remember). This also opens up some options for cool enhancements, like the strength upgrade which can give you up to +3 strength for 4500 nuyen, or the hydraulic jacks upgrade which lets you jump like crazy and fall for several meters without damage.

As for where to get the money? Well, if you grab the strength upgrade from the armor, you could drop your muscle enhancements. Might also consider dropping the gland which would give you back 5 BP. That combined with adding another 5 BP of negative qualities could give you you're rating in animals. You could also chip at smaller things, but it'd be alot of chipping due to the cost of the armor, helmet, and upgrades.

Oh, nearly missed it. I highly suggest either getting a skill at six or getting two skills at five. Karma wise it is very expensive to raise a skill to five or six compared to the BP cost to do so.

Okay, so wrote more than I expected, but still, mostly minor(or non-existent) things and one rather big one. Oh, and I know you said you wanted to keep the hellhound, but I still suggest you pick up some regular dogs as well. No reason you can't have both, and you could think of it as an infantry and tank setup. The normal dogs are the infantry and the hellhound is the big tank (though not quite as hard to destroy). Variety is the spice of life after all

Edit: Oh, totally forgot. You might also want to consider dropping dodge, or changing it to a ranged spec. In melee combat you'll be able to make use of your unarmed skill to defend yourself, and so should generally be okay there without dodge. Granted it does add 2 extra dice (Or perhaps 4 in the case of a full dodge), so it certainly isn't worthless, but just figured I'd point out that you could make use of the melee skill you have to cover yourself in melee. Given you're a ranged fighter though, I'd imagine that ranged dodges would be more common.

Yeah, the nice thing about having some regular dogs as backup is the simple fact that you don't need to be very skilled to provide the Friends in Melee to the big guns. Definitely worth considering.